AMD has a dying CPU brand, outshined in every way by Intel. Intel will reach low-power CPU and high performance GPU long before AMD will do the same.
So that leaves Radeon and nVidia. They are already being beat my nVidia, with Intel nipping at the heels of both at the entry level, especially with Haswell. What is AMD to do?
He said "CPU" and you challenged him about "GPU". Intel has been outshining AMD with CPUs since Core (technically a revision of Pentium M). Single core performance, multi-core performance, thermals, power consumption, etc. It's been a clean sweep for 6 straight years.
It's no secret AMD wins with IGP... for now, but Intel is picking up their game. HD3000 was tolerable in several games, HD4000 makes almost any game playable. HDx0000 on Haswell will likely be a force to be reckoned with, assuming it gets proper driver support.
I think anyone reading this article fully knows that Intel cpus' have consistently been higher performers than AMD's for some time. There's no doubt about it. They also know that Intel GPU's have a long history of substandard performance.
I think the key point is to remember what market segment AMD has chosen to focus on. As many consumers are oblivious to the internals of a computer...they just want it to work and do what then need. Typically today's general consumers use their computers for surfing, email, FB, etc. I'm sure you will agree that most consumers systems are never really under load for more than a minute. Gaming consoles are the most common tool they turn too when they want to play games.
AMD has always been the price leader when it comes to reasonable performance at a reasonable cost.
It's one thing to say you have the fastest CPU's but when it comes down to purchase time....most consumers are not willing to fork out the big bucks. It's like buying a Ferrari when you only drive to the grocery store and never on the highway. The exception to this is the fashionable hardware that Apple produces. Those consumers (aka Fanboys) would buy an Apple even if it was powered by an AMD APU. They are not aware of the specs or focused on them. They only care that its an apple product and looks cool. They don't care/consider that it costs more than a similarly spec'd PC.
In the end...there are people who research and buy what meets their needs....and then there are those who are followers of the current trends. Intel has better branding, but AMD would also meet the needs of most consumers. IMO.
AMD wins on IGP for now? are you for real? Haswell will be an improvement, no doubt, but AMD will have GCN 2.0 cores in Kaveri with a 256 bit wide memory bus. Combine that with Steamroller cores and HSA support. Watch this space!
HSA is the future, please feel free to educate yourself, if you haven't already. 1TFLOPs of single precision compute performance from an APU! AMD a dying brand? don't be silly, its just making the transition to the future.
Oh please, you guys are acting like I'm some Intel fanboy. I also never said AMD was a dying brand, so I'm not sure where that came from. Truth is that we don't know anything concrete about Haswell or Kaveri's performance yet. What we do know right now is that HD4000 beats Trinity in some games while being trounced by Trinity in others (see AT's review of Trinity).
Estimates of Haswell GT3 say up to 2.5X improvement over HD4000, estimates of Kaveri say 2.5X improvement over Trinity. So, as you said, if AMD build it properly, it will triumph. Either way, "entry-level" graphics are going to be very impressive compared to today.
HSA is very impressive on paper, so we'll see how well it gets carried out IRL. By then, Haswell and Kaveri will be old news.
The HD4000 beats/ties the mobile version of Trinity. (The mobile and desktop HD4000 are the same). The desktop version of Trinity will probably absolutely stomp all over the HD 4000.
Shame for AMD that desktops have long since been eclipsed by notebooks. Maybe if they could fit their desktop iGPU into their mobile part (without causing it to burst into flames) they could make some progress.
ROFL While amd is pushing apu, they're getting STOMPED by nVidia's optimus technology - which pairs up with a SB or IB, since amd's mobile cpu side is so blow. So amd loses the mobile graphics sale, and the cpu sale since their apu sucks. That's two refreshes of loser for amd... I suspect the 4th or 5th may be "playable".
True that it losses from a straight performance viewpoint in both gpu and cpu, but you are forgeting the pricerange these two are aimed at, Slowest intel+nvidia combo starts at 800$ and things go up very fast. Lower ends duck under 500$. A10 AMD maxes out at 750$ and that is with 1600x900 screen + 750 GB hdd. The same thing in intel+nvidia will cost you 1000+$ At least.
You mean Intel? The copycat IP thief? Seriously if its a good idea it will be copied, end of story. How good of an implementation it is and whether or not it improves on the idea at all are the important parts. Only ass hat companies like apple are willing sue somebody for an idea that they copied from someone else and claim it as their own. Companies like that are the ones holding back progress and are the reason why much of the IP system in the U.S. needs an overhaul. And seriously Cerise, I dont see why you need to throw so much hate towards AMD, is that the only way for you to get your kicks? Are you that small?
"The FirePro APUs are aimed at workstations that need professional quality graphics drivers but are fine with entry level GPU performance."
I would figure that anyone needing professional quality graphics drivers would also require a high end CPU in which case it would be better to go with an Intel CPU/APU.
I have not seen the benchmarks on this APU yet, but I doubt it will be able to compete with a Intel CPU paired with a discrete GPU, especially since this is targeted toward professional workstations where price isn't as big of an issue as compared to the consumer market. Unless this APU is substantially lower in total cost and/or has comparable performance to an Intel/dGPU solution I don't see this new FirePro APU being a big seller. Even then it's still doubtful.
It has the exact same CPU, it's the GPU that they changed. There are 2 kinds of graphics: Professional and Consumer.
Nvidia has GeForce for consumer, and Quadro for pro. AMD has Radeon for consumer and FirePro for pro.
This APU has a GPU with slight changes that make it a FirePro chip rather than a Radeon chip... That means it can run CAD applications, 3d rendering software, cad, movie editing/rendering etc software a lot faster than a consumer card, but at a way lower price than a $2000 quadro card.
This wont match a quadro or FirePro, but it will give a whole new minimum price for most of the CAD world that just needs a new and cheap Pro GPU.
The companies will just outsource to India where amd's crappy cheap junk for free steals good US jobs - and where the hackable / defense risk / amd drivers won't make so many uneasy. Yep, amd, the outsource company, cheap crap for cheap labor in a cheap nation, bye bye living wage USA.
Every reader not take this comment because seriously lack of proper grammar.
Serious note, it depends on wat the market is. I just purchased a AMD Trinity based laptop because I wanted good graphics performance for gaming on the go, but I didn't need tons of CPU power. Not to mention it was far less expensive than a comparable intel based laptop with dedicated graphics.
I can say the same with respect to ECC and platform advantages that Intel has. In the business world on client machines. TPM support? Anyone else catch that AMD has not yet released pile driver on desktops yet? This is the first pile driver based desktop processor. AMD still has a 6Gbps count advantage over Intel (Intel's 1155 have been carrying the 2 ports by default). I can see what we have been posting here not meaning much to buyers in India and areas like that.
While Intel could crush AMD if they wanted to, it wouldn't be beneficial for them to do so. There are 2 factors at work here: market share and antitrust legislation. Intel wouldn't gain much market share by crushing AMD and it would subject them to risk for having a monopoly.
It benefits Intel by having a small competitor that always barely manages to hold on. Such a competitor doesn't steal enough sales to really impact Intel's bottom line and it shields Intel from the government's wrath.
90% of computing is identical on a similarly priced AMD processor.
People prefer GPU power nowadays, not CPU power. If its quad core and decent, you wont notice any slowdowns anyways. It's just TomsHardware trying their best to get their Intel sponsorship check to make AMD CPUs look bad. They really do work perfectly and offer much more value than an Intel chip.
Their interconnect tech is something to be reckoned with as well. Kaveri is going to have unified memory between the CPU and GPU, lowering the transfer bandwidth usage by 30-70%.
Agility should depend on the level of delegated responsibility. Does not matter whether company is big or small. If every level is stuck because it needs blessing from several upper layers for simple decision, the company will not be agile, even if it is small in headcount. And vice-versa.
AMD also announced new FirePro dGPUs today. Are these based on GCN/Southern Islands? I looked at the specs on AMDs site for the low-end card W5000. From the 75W TDP, I would have suspected the workstation equivalent of HD7750, except that the card has double the RAM (2GB vs 1GB) and twice the interface width (256-bit vs 128), which could make the $500-ish MSRP more palatable, especially as they also apparently support CrossFirePro (!).
(As an aside, I have been waiting to upgrade my SFF work machine to a workstation card, and had hoped that AMD might put GCN on a half-height card at the low end of their new lineup. Rats.)
I look forward to AnandTech's comparison of the new workstation cards with the older Northern Islands variants.
They're based on GCN. We're working on a review of W9000 and W8000 right now but it is taking far longer than originally planned (otherwise it would have been up at midnight).
As for the W5000, it's a very low clocked Pitcairn card, hence the reason it has the larger memory bus.
AMD aren't junk, I'm using a Core i7 3930K currently and at 5760x1080 resolution I can't tell the difference in games to the old Phenom 2 x6 1090T, you are always GPU limited at such a resolution anyway.
Hardware is sooo far ahead of software that a Phenom 2 or AMD FX will handle everything you throw at it.
What price is this going to retail at? I just can't see much market for these. Either AMD is going to price them so low they barely will make any money off the chips, or the buyers of the chips (either oems or final buyers) will just go with intel for the intel is much faster.
A Firepro V3900 (turks based professional graphic card with 480 stream processors, will get you the same feature set as these new professional apus) goes for $105 online i5 2310 quad core goes for $180 h61 motherboards go for $50 Total is $335
We don't know the price of the A300 or A320 hell trinity hasn't been released yet for non oems, but consider a a8 3850 goes for $100 FM1 motherboards go for $55 Total is $155
Thus AMD has a $180 savings compared to the intel quad core system, thus AMD has less than $180 to price the firepro professional graphic "tax" (or from AMD perspective profit.) Thing is the intel system will dominate trinity or llano in both cpu and graphic card related tasks.
Even if you only pay your workers $3000 a year, if your workers are at minimum 6% more efficient due to the much higher computing power of the intel system (in both cpu and graphic card tasks) then you paid for the difference of $180 due to the fact $180/$3000=6%.
I'm not sure as concerns the V3900. It has a single precision rating of 624GFLOPS; the A300 rates at 693 and the A320 at 736. FP64 rate is 1/4 FP32. The V3900 is clocked at 650MHz with 900MHz of DDR3 on a 128-bit bus, whereas the A300 and A320 are clocked at 760MHz and 800MHz respectively on a similar bus - perhaps, even with fast RAM, it could be a slight hamstring for the APU considering it has a CPU to feed. I don't have any info on V3900's FP64 capabilities (if, indeed, it has them).
There's so much focus on SOC and integrating more features into the one chip. One thing that I'd like to see is integrating an entire system on a board.
These days, a low end system will handle the needs of 90% of consumers. And 99% of those consumers will never upgrade specific components. In fact, the biggest performance upgrade anyone can do to their system is an SSD. Unfortunately, it's usually only higher end systems that have SSD options.
What I'd like to see AMD do, now that they're in the memory game, is to produce mATX boards with an APU, 4 or 8GB RAM and a 128Gb SSD soldered directly onto the board. Literally, a complete system that all you need to do is screw it into a case, plug power in and install an OS.
Consumers care about how fast their computer is to do the tasks they want it to do. An SSD is the only piece of hardware that has a tangible effect on that. Focus on low end hardware for the consumer market with high performance storage all on one board and carve a new product niche.
It mightn't be where the big bucks are, but AMD has shown in the past that a good product at a budget price that is well accepted by system builders can lead to a higher adoption rate of higher end hardware.
Why AMD instead of Intel GPU if you have to go integrated?
Well now, drivers.
I have a SandyBridge ULV system. Intel requires that the OEMs release the video drivers for moble chips much like nVIDIA did years ago. End result? The driver the system has when you buy it is the only driver you will ever have. Intel has put out new drivers about twice a year, but my system is still stuck with a driver from 2010 because the OEM never released a new one.
We have much better luck with AMD IGPs.
That said, I have seen the HD3000 on the list of certified GPUs for SolidWorks (CAD package), so AMD is already late to this game.
If oblivion hits AMD, we can't thank all the rabid amd fanboys who never saw a price they liked unless it was lower - so dire is their need, they beg for nVidia (whom they hate for making a profit) to release so they can get a cheaper amd...
LOL - with those kinds of fans...
Traditionally, fans showered their love with extra money, showing their support... Amd fanboys are poor, tightwad, self defeating, fools. They will crush amd, not much longer... then they will blame everyone but themselves.
I know this has been inactive for a while, but thought it worth my input.
Everybody seems to lose track of target market, if it isnt going to be the fastest or the best a lot of companies will not look at it or build it. AMD has risked that the SMB group which has limited financial support would be interested in pushing existing systems which would not normally be capable of worthy CAD/CAM operation and give them a taste of that ability. Of course this is not meant to replace a pure CAD/CAM system which would obviously run a dedicated graphics card regardless of AMD or NVidia, it just meant for the small business owner which needs decent enough CAD/CAM driver support.
I do CAD/CAM (Engineering 5+ years) work, I also work in the IT (10+ years) industry and have built many custom CAD machines, ran benchmarks for different systems for different applications. And in my experience and professionals will agree, each generation of graphics cards, drivers and processors have different impact on CAD/CAM applications and each application utilizes the GPU, CPU and RAM resources differently.
This processor is strictly designed for the users not capable of shelling out $300-$4000 for a good professional graphics card, it is designed for the people that are willing to spend $20 more to get a low end processor which has professional graphics driver support and it capable of 2D/3D GPU rendering of small part and assembly CAD files, likely not even editing, just viewing.
I would be very interested in seeing some Solidworks, Catia, Inventor, 3ds and SolidEdge benchmarks. Likely it competes well with low end workstation graphics cards, which would have been the entire goal. Note: Intel HD3000 is supported with some CAD/CAM packages now, however, not even close to all and not nearly as closely supported as FirePro and Quadro drivers. In the end, you can run CAD/CAM on any gpu, the issue is unsupported drivers lead to odd random program and graphics errors, which are costly in the machining/engineering field. Line disappears, the programmer cant tell the machine to cut that profile.
I am a big fan of Intel Xeon based processors and NVidia Quadro cards, however, also understand cost, and I can definitely see the market. Personally, if these were available and usable on any FM2 board, I would buy it, for $250 board and processor combined, it would be nice to do some reliable, quality CAD/CAM from time to time without the excess cost. CAD/CAM software is very expensive by itself.
AMD has taken an interesting direction, and at the very least creates a new area of competition for Intel and NVidia both of which tend for forget the price point advantage regarding the SMB group in favor of large business. I applaud the concept.
A year has past since this article, and systems with firepro apu are really difficult to find. I only found one from shapphire, but no site to buy it. I wonder what is the reason for this, maybe drivers can be used in standard apu ?
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42 Comments
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mevans336 - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
I can't help but think of Cyrix in the 90's?AMD has a dying CPU brand, outshined in every way by Intel. Intel will reach low-power CPU and high performance GPU long before AMD will do the same.
So that leaves Radeon and nVidia. They are already being beat my nVidia, with Intel nipping at the heels of both at the entry level, especially with Haswell. What is AMD to do?
phatboye - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
"AMD has a dying CPU brand, outshined in every way by Intel."Can you please explain in what way Intel's GPU "outshined" AMD's GPU? Link to benchmarks, I've never heard anything remotely close to this.
nathanddrews - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
He said "CPU" and you challenged him about "GPU". Intel has been outshining AMD with CPUs since Core (technically a revision of Pentium M). Single core performance, multi-core performance, thermals, power consumption, etc. It's been a clean sweep for 6 straight years.It's no secret AMD wins with IGP... for now, but Intel is picking up their game. HD3000 was tolerable in several games, HD4000 makes almost any game playable. HDx0000 on Haswell will likely be a force to be reckoned with, assuming it gets proper driver support.
GotThumbs - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
I think anyone reading this article fully knows that Intel cpus' have consistently been higher performers than AMD's for some time. There's no doubt about it. They also know that Intel GPU's have a long history of substandard performance.I think the key point is to remember what market segment AMD has chosen to focus on. As many consumers are oblivious to the internals of a computer...they just want it to work and do what then need. Typically today's general consumers use their computers for surfing, email, FB, etc. I'm sure you will agree that most consumers systems are never really under load for more than a minute. Gaming consoles are the most common tool they turn too when they want to play games.
AMD has always been the price leader when it comes to reasonable performance at a reasonable cost.
It's one thing to say you have the fastest CPU's but when it comes down to purchase time....most consumers are not willing to fork out the big bucks. It's like buying a Ferrari when you only drive to the grocery store and never on the highway. The exception to this is the fashionable hardware that Apple produces. Those consumers (aka Fanboys) would buy an Apple even if it was powered by an AMD APU. They are not aware of the specs or focused on them. They only care that its an apple product and looks cool. They don't care/consider that it costs more than a similarly spec'd PC.
In the end...there are people who research and buy what meets their needs....and then there are those who are followers of the current trends. Intel has better branding, but AMD would also meet the needs of most consumers. IMO.
Best wishes choice.
parkerm35 - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
@ nathanddrewsAMD wins on IGP for now? are you for real? Haswell will be an improvement, no doubt, but AMD will have GCN 2.0 cores in Kaveri with a 256 bit wide memory bus. Combine that with Steamroller cores and HSA support. Watch this space!
HSA is the future, please feel free to educate yourself, if you haven't already.
1TFLOPs of single precision compute performance from an APU! AMD a dying brand? don't be silly, its just making the transition to the future.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/130939-the-fu...
Merkerntish - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Let him dream. He doesn't know about Kaveri at all.Haswell: Adding somewhere for the GPU to store its data alone
Kaveri: Adding something that the CPU and GPU can share together
Everyone knows that the Kaveri will be faster if designed properly, the problem is that AMD sometimes doesnt design properly.
nathanddrews - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Oh please, you guys are acting like I'm some Intel fanboy. I also never said AMD was a dying brand, so I'm not sure where that came from. Truth is that we don't know anything concrete about Haswell or Kaveri's performance yet. What we do know right now is that HD4000 beats Trinity in some games while being trounced by Trinity in others (see AT's review of Trinity).Estimates of Haswell GT3 say up to 2.5X improvement over HD4000, estimates of Kaveri say 2.5X improvement over Trinity. So, as you said, if AMD build it properly, it will triumph. Either way, "entry-level" graphics are going to be very impressive compared to today.
HSA is very impressive on paper, so we'll see how well it gets carried out IRL. By then, Haswell and Kaveri will be old news.
karasaj - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
The HD4000 beats/ties the mobile version of Trinity. (The mobile and desktop HD4000 are the same). The desktop version of Trinity will probably absolutely stomp all over the HD 4000.KitsuneKnight - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Shame for AMD that desktops have long since been eclipsed by notebooks. Maybe if they could fit their desktop iGPU into their mobile part (without causing it to burst into flames) they could make some progress.CeriseCogburn - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link
ROFLWhile amd is pushing apu, they're getting STOMPED by nVidia's optimus technology - which pairs up with a SB or IB, since amd's mobile cpu side is so blow.
So amd loses the mobile graphics sale, and the cpu sale since their apu sucks.
That's two refreshes of loser for amd...
I suspect the 4th or 5th may be "playable".
Braincruser - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - link
True that it losses from a straight performance viewpoint in both gpu and cpu, but you are forgeting the pricerange these two are aimed at,Slowest intel+nvidia combo starts at 800$ and things go up very fast.
Lower ends duck under 500$.
A10 AMD maxes out at 750$ and that is with 1600x900 screen + 750 GB hdd. The same thing in intel+nvidia will cost you 1000+$ At least.
chavv - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Yup, many similarities :(Last attempt of Cyrix was CyrixGX - an integrated all-in-one chip, one of first in pc industry (100% FIRST X86!), that had cpu+audio+gpu in one chip
CeriseCogburn - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link
I hope their shell sues the crap out of amd the copycat ip theif.artk2219 - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - link
You mean Intel? The copycat IP thief? Seriously if its a good idea it will be copied, end of story. How good of an implementation it is and whether or not it improves on the idea at all are the important parts. Only ass hat companies like apple are willing sue somebody for an idea that they copied from someone else and claim it as their own. Companies like that are the ones holding back progress and are the reason why much of the IP system in the U.S. needs an overhaul. And seriously Cerise, I dont see why you need to throw so much hate towards AMD, is that the only way for you to get your kicks? Are you that small?phatboye - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
"The FirePro APUs are aimed at workstations that need professional quality graphics drivers but are fine with entry level GPU performance."I would figure that anyone needing professional quality graphics drivers would also require a high end CPU in which case it would be better to go with an Intel CPU/APU.
I have not seen the benchmarks on this APU yet, but I doubt it will be able to compete with a Intel CPU paired with a discrete GPU, especially since this is targeted toward professional workstations where price isn't as big of an issue as compared to the consumer market. Unless this APU is substantially lower in total cost and/or has comparable performance to an Intel/dGPU solution I don't see this new FirePro APU being a big seller. Even then it's still doubtful.
satai - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
What about chipset and ECC support?Arnulf - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Precisely, what advantages does this APU offer to professional users in comparison to desktop A10 Trinity APU ?Merkerntish - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
It has the exact same CPU, it's the GPU that they changed. There are 2 kinds of graphics: Professional and Consumer.Nvidia has GeForce for consumer, and Quadro for pro.
AMD has Radeon for consumer and FirePro for pro.
This APU has a GPU with slight changes that make it a FirePro chip rather than a Radeon chip... That means it can run CAD applications, 3d rendering software, cad, movie editing/rendering etc software a lot faster than a consumer card, but at a way lower price than a $2000 quadro card.
This wont match a quadro or FirePro, but it will give a whole new minimum price for most of the CAD world that just needs a new and cheap Pro GPU.
CeriseCogburn - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link
The companies will just outsource to India where amd's crappy cheap junk for free steals good US jobs - and where the hackable / defense risk / amd drivers won't make so many uneasy.Yep, amd, the outsource company, cheap crap for cheap labor in a cheap nation, bye bye living wage USA.
Zoomer - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
It probably enables OpenGL features/extensions that enable these apps to work, or to work better/faster.rudolphna - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Every reader not take this comment because seriously lack of proper grammar.Serious note, it depends on wat the market is. I just purchased a AMD Trinity based laptop because I wanted good graphics performance for gaming on the go, but I didn't need tons of CPU power. Not to mention it was far less expensive than a comparable intel based laptop with dedicated graphics.
CeriseCogburn - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link
Wow, cool... almost thirteen inches of pixellated blurry 1024x768 at low game settings.eanazag - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
I can say the same with respect to ECC and platform advantages that Intel has. In the business world on client machines. TPM support? Anyone else catch that AMD has not yet released pile driver on desktops yet? This is the first pile driver based desktop processor. AMD still has a 6Gbps count advantage over Intel (Intel's 1155 have been carrying the 2 ports by default). I can see what we have been posting here not meaning much to buyers in India and areas like that.91TTZ - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
While Intel could crush AMD if they wanted to, it wouldn't be beneficial for them to do so. There are 2 factors at work here: market share and antitrust legislation. Intel wouldn't gain much market share by crushing AMD and it would subject them to risk for having a monopoly.It benefits Intel by having a small competitor that always barely manages to hold on. Such a competitor doesn't steal enough sales to really impact Intel's bottom line and it shields Intel from the government's wrath.
rudolphna - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
GTFO troll.silverblue - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Ignore it, maybe it'll go away or finally be removed.Merkerntish - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
90% of computing is identical on a similarly priced AMD processor.People prefer GPU power nowadays, not CPU power. If its quad core and decent, you wont notice any slowdowns anyways. It's just TomsHardware trying their best to get their Intel sponsorship check to make AMD CPUs look bad. They really do work perfectly and offer much more value than an Intel chip.
Their interconnect tech is something to be reckoned with as well. Kaveri is going to have unified memory between the CPU and GPU, lowering the transfer bandwidth usage by 30-70%.
silverblue - Wednesday, August 8, 2012 - link
As AMD's memory controller architecture cannot hope to keep up with Intel's right now, a smarter approach should help get them back into the game.CeriseCogburn - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link
mr merkerntish, please... you're oozing abu dhabi paid pr stupidity on steroids..See any review sites rocking the amd cpu ? ROFLMHO
I've seen one out of hundreds ... can't remember who the fly by night was...
So, you slandered tom's with your immense idiotic, non thinking, amnesic, clueless, buffoonery... (Tom's is in lust with amd cpu's, but you knew that)
NO AMD for benchmarking reviews....
LOL - hahahhahahahaahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
risa2000 - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Agility should depend on the level of delegated responsibility. Does not matter whether company is big or small. If every level is stuck because it needs blessing from several upper layers for simple decision, the company will not be agile, even if it is small in headcount. And vice-versa.jtd871 - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Anand,AMD also announced new FirePro dGPUs today. Are these based on GCN/Southern Islands? I looked at the specs on AMDs site for the low-end card W5000. From the 75W TDP, I would have suspected the workstation equivalent of HD7750, except that the card has double the RAM (2GB vs 1GB) and twice the interface width (256-bit vs 128), which could make the $500-ish MSRP more palatable, especially as they also apparently support CrossFirePro (!).
(As an aside, I have been waiting to upgrade my SFF work machine to a workstation card, and had hoped that AMD might put GCN on a half-height card at the low end of their new lineup. Rats.)
I look forward to AnandTech's comparison of the new workstation cards with the older Northern Islands variants.
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Hi jtd;They're based on GCN. We're working on a review of W9000 and W8000 right now but it is taking far longer than originally planned (otherwise it would have been up at midnight).
As for the W5000, it's a very low clocked Pitcairn card, hence the reason it has the larger memory bus.
jtd871 - Wednesday, August 8, 2012 - link
W5000 is Pitcairn, eh? That does explain the $600 MSRP a bit more. Interesting. Thanks, Ryan.StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
Oh gawd.AMD aren't junk, I'm using a Core i7 3930K currently and at 5760x1080 resolution I can't tell the difference in games to the old Phenom 2 x6 1090T, you are always GPU limited at such a resolution anyway.
Hardware is sooo far ahead of software that a Phenom 2 or AMD FX will handle everything you throw at it.
Roland00Address - Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - link
What price is this going to retail at? I just can't see much market for these. Either AMD is going to price them so low they barely will make any money off the chips, or the buyers of the chips (either oems or final buyers) will just go with intel for the intel is much faster.A Firepro V3900 (turks based professional graphic card with 480 stream processors, will get you the same feature set as these new professional apus) goes for $105 online
i5 2310 quad core goes for $180
h61 motherboards go for $50
Total is $335
We don't know the price of the A300 or A320 hell trinity hasn't been released yet for non oems, but consider a
a8 3850 goes for $100
FM1 motherboards go for $55
Total is $155
Thus AMD has a $180 savings compared to the intel quad core system, thus AMD has less than $180 to price the firepro professional graphic "tax" (or from AMD perspective profit.) Thing is the intel system will dominate trinity or llano in both cpu and graphic card related tasks.
Even if you only pay your workers $3000 a year, if your workers are at minimum 6% more efficient due to the much higher computing power of the intel system (in both cpu and graphic card tasks) then you paid for the difference of $180 due to the fact $180/$3000=6%.
silverblue - Wednesday, August 8, 2012 - link
I'm not sure as concerns the V3900. It has a single precision rating of 624GFLOPS; the A300 rates at 693 and the A320 at 736. FP64 rate is 1/4 FP32. The V3900 is clocked at 650MHz with 900MHz of DDR3 on a 128-bit bus, whereas the A300 and A320 are clocked at 760MHz and 800MHz respectively on a similar bus - perhaps, even with fast RAM, it could be a slight hamstring for the APU considering it has a CPU to feed. I don't have any info on V3900's FP64 capabilities (if, indeed, it has them).unclewoja - Saturday, August 11, 2012 - link
There's so much focus on SOC and integrating more features into the one chip. One thing that I'd like to see is integrating an entire system on a board.These days, a low end system will handle the needs of 90% of consumers. And 99% of those consumers will never upgrade specific components. In fact, the biggest performance upgrade anyone can do to their system is an SSD. Unfortunately, it's usually only higher end systems that have SSD options.
What I'd like to see AMD do, now that they're in the memory game, is to produce mATX boards with an APU, 4 or 8GB RAM and a 128Gb SSD soldered directly onto the board. Literally, a complete system that all you need to do is screw it into a case, plug power in and install an OS.
Consumers care about how fast their computer is to do the tasks they want it to do. An SSD is the only piece of hardware that has a tangible effect on that. Focus on low end hardware for the consumer market with high performance storage all on one board and carve a new product niche.
It mightn't be where the big bucks are, but AMD has shown in the past that a good product at a budget price that is well accepted by system builders can lead to a higher adoption rate of higher end hardware.
UrQuan3 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Why AMD instead of Intel GPU if you have to go integrated?Well now, drivers.
I have a SandyBridge ULV system. Intel requires that the OEMs release the video drivers for moble chips much like nVIDIA did years ago. End result? The driver the system has when you buy it is the only driver you will ever have. Intel has put out new drivers about twice a year, but my system is still stuck with a driver from 2010 because the OEM never released a new one.
We have much better luck with AMD IGPs.
That said, I have seen the HD3000 on the list of certified GPUs for SolidWorks (CAD package), so AMD is already late to this game.
CeriseCogburn - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link
If oblivion hits AMD, we can't thank all the rabid amd fanboys who never saw a price they liked unless it was lower - so dire is their need, they beg for nVidia (whom they hate for making a profit) to release so they can get a cheaper amd...LOL - with those kinds of fans...
Traditionally, fans showered their love with extra money, showing their support...
Amd fanboys are poor, tightwad, self defeating, fools. They will crush amd, not much longer... then they will blame everyone but themselves.
Rhah - Tuesday, December 18, 2012 - link
I know this has been inactive for a while, but thought it worth my input.Everybody seems to lose track of target market, if it isnt going to be the fastest or the best a lot of companies will not look at it or build it. AMD has risked that the SMB group which has limited financial support would be interested in pushing existing systems which would not normally be capable of worthy CAD/CAM operation and give them a taste of that ability. Of course this is not meant to replace a pure CAD/CAM system which would obviously run a dedicated graphics card regardless of AMD or NVidia, it just meant for the small business owner which needs decent enough CAD/CAM driver support.
I do CAD/CAM (Engineering 5+ years) work, I also work in the IT (10+ years) industry and have built many custom CAD machines, ran benchmarks for different systems for different applications. And in my experience and professionals will agree, each generation of graphics cards, drivers and processors have different impact on CAD/CAM applications and each application utilizes the GPU, CPU and RAM resources differently.
This processor is strictly designed for the users not capable of shelling out $300-$4000 for a good professional graphics card, it is designed for the people that are willing to spend $20 more to get a low end processor which has professional graphics driver support and it capable of 2D/3D GPU rendering of small part and assembly CAD files, likely not even editing, just viewing.
I would be very interested in seeing some Solidworks, Catia, Inventor, 3ds and SolidEdge benchmarks. Likely it competes well with low end workstation graphics cards, which would have been the entire goal. Note: Intel HD3000 is supported with some CAD/CAM packages now, however, not even close to all and not nearly as closely supported as FirePro and Quadro drivers. In the end, you can run CAD/CAM on any gpu, the issue is unsupported drivers lead to odd random program and graphics errors, which are costly in the machining/engineering field. Line disappears, the programmer cant tell the machine to cut that profile.
I am a big fan of Intel Xeon based processors and NVidia Quadro cards, however, also understand cost, and I can definitely see the market. Personally, if these were available and usable on any FM2 board, I would buy it, for $250 board and processor combined, it would be nice to do some reliable, quality CAD/CAM from time to time without the excess cost. CAD/CAM software is very expensive by itself.
AMD has taken an interesting direction, and at the very least creates a new area of competition for Intel and NVidia both of which tend for forget the price point advantage regarding the SMB group in favor of large business. I applaud the concept.
anonymous1511 - Sunday, April 7, 2013 - link
Most amd graphics card are outperform nvidia card.Intel CPU OK but bus width Intel HD series are totally crap......clg - Thursday, August 8, 2013 - link
A year has past since this article, and systems with firepro apu are really difficult to find. I only found one from shapphire, but no site to buy it. I wonder what is the reason for this, maybe drivers can be used in standard apu ?